Pop's thespian wannabes crash and burn

J.Lo and Ben: the pair perform no service to lesbians or heteros in Gigli.

What is it about the singer-turned-actor that makes them fail so spectacularly? By Steve Dow.

Poor Jennifer Lopez. Gigli, her ill-starred romantic comedy with boyfriend Ben Affleck, in which she plays a fence-hopping lesbian, was meant to open far and wide across Australian cinema screens this weekend, but the flick has been unceremoniously flipped straight on to DVD and video after its United States box office drubbing.

The film is now as stale as the news that J.Lo and Ben have split. Neither event comes as a surprise: what relationship could withstand one partner's strip club shenanigans, the pressure of being an officially hot couple at the mercy of burning flashbulbs, and the almost universally bad reviews of combined professional efforts?

Be warned: this video sin-binning is not the last call on Gigli. Already, the film is a hot contender for next year's Razzies for worst film of the year, giving poisonous critics yet another chance to rip pop-stars-turned-actors to shreds.

According to one tongue-in-cheek report published in the satirical online magazine The Onion, the warnings were writ large from the beginning. Test audiences for J.Lo and Ben's foray into sexual fluidity demanded the ending be re-shot so the lead characters "die in as brutal a manner as possible".

So why do pop-singers-turned-actors fare so badly in the critical stakes? Singers who look strong and in control of their singing careers - Madonna, Britney, J.Lo - down to those with declining pop power - Mariah Carey - can do no right in the eyes of film critics.

A reviewer for the online magazine Slate, David Edelstein, was typical of the vitriol: "I'd suggest that Lopez and Affleck issue a public apology to lesbians, but when moviedom's hottest couple is reduced to gobbling and mooing at each other, it's likely that heterosexuality has suffered the more lasting injury." A rumour aired by columnist for New York-based Radar magazine Michael Musto that J.Lo and Ben were going to remake Casablanca can hopefully now be put to rest.

Salon's Charles Taylor was kinder: Gigli, he says, was "merely bad - not a train wreck, not (a) crime against humanity (it's more a case of) the predictable pig pile of critics trying to outdo each other by seeing who can be the most dismissive or scathing. After all, nobody wants to look like the class nerd." Poor Charles Taylor must have been a lonely nerdy sight eating his popcorn in the cinema.

Perhaps it was always thus for pop wannabe thespians. The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour has only been recently re-interpreted as art by nostalgic baby boomers. No-one ever watched an Elvis film for The King's acting. And Abba played it safe by just being themselves in their 1977 Australian-filmed feature Abba -The Movie.

Madonna in the poster for husband Guy Ritchie's stinker, Swept Away.

Lopez, however, in her effort to stretch herself, has darkened critics' doorsteps before. In February, while Hollywood awaited news of the Oscars, she was nominated twice for the Razzies, the mock awards that honour dishonourable contributions to film, for her previous movies Maid in Manhattan and Enough.

But back then it was Madonna's turn to the incur the wrath of poisonous critics. Her film Swept Away, directed by husband Guy Ritchie, fared so badly in the United States it was not even released in her adopted country, England. Madonna, said Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, "continues to mistake a knack for striking poses with the interpretative skill of a real actor".

Perhaps J.Lo and Ben took heed of the potential disaster of trying to emulate Bogart and Bacall given Madonna's dodgy remake. Razzies founder John Wilson described Swept Away as an "awful remake" of a highly regarded Italian film. The effort won Madonna worst actress for the 23rd annual Razzies awards handed out by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation in California in March.

Madonna had to share the award, however, with Britney Spears, who collected eight nominations for her first screen performance, Crossroads. Britney's film made money, at least: Mariah Carey's big screen debut in 2001, Glitter, bombed. Critics were no kinder even though Carey had suffered a reported nervous breakdown: she was the previous year's winner of worst actress for the Razzies.

But deputy editor of Australian online film magazine Urban Cinefile, Louise Keller, suggests critics have a case of "tall poppy syndrome".

Keller concedes that, in the case of pop stars making their debut film - read Britney and Mariah - it might be that little attention is paid to the script and more on "cosseting the vanity and attributes of the pop star".

But, she says, pop stars don't necessarily transfer so badly to the screen. "Certainly, in the case of Madonna when she was 'swept away' with hubby Guy Ritchie, her vanity may have got the better of her, but J.Lo is a very fine actress, with excellent performances in films such as Out of Sight, The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan.

"It's interesting to note that she has not actually sung in any of her films, but still the criticisms are forthcoming." Keller also points out that singer Mandy Moore was "delightful" in A Walk to Remember, where singing took a back seat to acting.

But the Razzies' John Wilson is unrepentant. At this point, he says, J.Lo has no real competition for worst actress Razzie for 2003, apart from American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, in her "even more unfortunate than Gigli" screen debut, From Justin to Kelly.

"I've always wondered how a star like Lopez could read a script like Gigli and decide 'I want to be in this movie'," says Wilson. "Did she not read the dialogue which had her character comparing her own vagina to a mouth, and the scene where she lies back spreadeagled on the bed and declares: 'It's turkey time - gobble, gobble'. How on earth could anyone think those scenes wouldn't be greeted with derisive laughter?"

Could this be a systemic problem of pop stars being manipulated by record and film studio bosses?

Wilson is having none of that. Stars of the magnitude of Lopez, Madonna, Britney and Mariah exercise extreme control over every aspect of their careers, he insists, from what they wear to what they endorse to where they appear and what movies they make.

They are also not victims of bad advice in making films like Gigli, Swept Away, Glitter and Crossroads, he says. "They are victims of their own poor taste in projects. They have no one to blame but themselves. The studios that produce these films are guilty only in the sense that they mistakenly believe pop stardom can be translated to screen stardom. With few exceptions, that simply is not true historically."